Don't be beastly to the Germans

Imagine a nation which is peaceable, democratic and generous in its foreign aid and its treatment of refugees; a country in which very many people speak good English; which invests in Britain and matters to our security; which has become prosperous by investing in its workforce; which has been linked with Britain, for good and ill, throughout its history; which is musical and cultured, devolved, friendly and politically relaxed.

Are we in favour of this country? Are we, in some sense, on its side? Well of course we are. In its modern, post-1945 incarnation and success, we helped make it.

Today we need its friendship and sometimes we need its help. And if all this is true, and it is, it is time to say what seems to be both obvious and barely-sayable. We are pro-German.

Yet read much of the press yesterday and you would think Britain loathed the Germans. Football might have been the excuse and the tone may have been intended as jocular; but the effect was savagely hostile.

The Daily Mirror parodied Neville Chamberlain's sombre announcement of the outbreak of the Second World War to declare "Football war on Germany"; the Daily Star declared: "Watch out Krauts. England are gonna bomb you to bits ..."; and the Sun suggested: "Let's Blitz Fritz".

It may be that this outbreak of tabloid anti-Germanism marks a turning point. By 5.15 last night, the Press Complaints Commission had received 67 complaints, the most since the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989, and the editor of the Mirror had apologised.

Journalistic plans to hire a Spitfire to drop leaflets on Berlin and to take a tank to the German embassy were, it seemed, being hurriedly spiked.

At Westminster, an Early Day Motion was tabled by Labour and Conservative MPs deploring "the frenzy of jingoistic, notably anti-German, nonsense in the tabloid press ..."

Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrats' leader, described the newspaper attacks as dangerous and hypocritical.

"The very papers declaring war on the Germans would be the first to lay into fans as 'louts' and 'thugs' if they treated the game as a rerun of World War Two and started attacking the German fans," he said.

Others were more outspoken. Herman Ouseley of the Commission for Racial Equality said the headlines were ridiculous: "It is bordering on the dangerous. Be careful, editors, you are pushing it a bit too far."

Meanwhile, Tony Blair, the Labour leader, referred to a recent speech in which he attacked the "envious bitterness" about Germany in the press.

In Germany, the reaction to the press attacks was baffled and hurt. Yesterday's edition of Suddeutsche Zeitung, a serious broadsheet newspaper, provided a comprehensive account. It explained to its readers that the Sun was "read by people who don't give a toss about who runs the country, as long as she has big tits". But anti-Germanism is more than a passing joke. For the past few years, from the late Nicholas Ridley's notorious interview in the Spectator to recent effusions about the coming "Fourth Reich", the campaign against European integration has taken on a sharp and unmistakable anti-German edge.

As Mr Blair has said: "One of the worst aspects of Britain's current political debate is that it has become acceptable in Conservative circles to talk about Germany and the Germans in the same tone which English politicians reserved for the Jews 80 years ago and the Irish a century ago."

But anti-Germanism finds hungry customers throughout this country. Hostility to Germany is potent. We admire their technology and buy their goods. But the British seem obsessed by Nazism and the war - more so than the once-occupied countries of Europe - and resentful of post-war German prosperity. Is it nostalgia? Is it, as Mr Ashdown suggests, insecurity?

Whatever the cause, the results are embarrassing. German children are bullied in British schools, passing the virus down another generation. Many Germans who live here feel increasingly uncomfortable. Even liberals say things about the Germans that would be considered shockingly xenophobic if directed at any other people.

Mass tourism has made France, Italy and Spain feel half like home to many Britons. Yet for us, Germany remains a land apart, little visited and even less understood.

As the last war slowly seeps from living memory, this seems increasingly odd. Modern Germany has been one of democracy's great success stories. It is more like modern Britain than either country is like its pre-war self. It may be big and rich, but it is about as much of a military threat to the United Kingdom as Switzerland is, or Swaziland.

This newspaper hopes England wins tomorrow's football game - though it is only a game. We are properly, wholly, patriotic about Britain. But it is time to blow a final whistle on juvenile xenophobia. It is time to say - we like the Germans.

*Don't let's be beastly to the Germans/ When our Victory is ultimately won - Noel Coward, 1943